"The S&P 500 had flirted with its closing record for two weeks before finally vaulting over that level Thursday. It had come within five points of the closing high in seven of the past 10 sessions.

"'The market has been trying and trying, and we finally crossed the line,' said Quincy Krosby, a market strategist at Prudential Financial, PRU -0.20% which manages roughly $1 trillion in assets. 'Having the Dow reaching new highs was good, but the S&P 500 is broader, it's bigger... it's an important message for investors.'"

Update at 4:16 p.m. ET. 131 Percent:

The Financial Times has this stunning number: "Since hitting an intraday low of 666.79 in March 2009, the S&P has rallied 131 per cent, boosted by aggressive monetary easing by the Federal Reserve and record US profits from the 500 constituents in the index."

This chart shows that huge fall and the recovery that followed:

All of this, notes the paper, is dampened by the fact that the U.S. economy overall has recovered at a very slow pace.